November 13, 2008

Plans for solar power plant on anvil

Kolkata,Thursday, Nov 13, 2008: West Bengal Green Energy Development Corporation (WBGEDC) has invited “expression of interest"" from various developers for setting up a roof-top solar energy harvesting mechanism.

The corporate houses or commercial buildings with roof top area more than 50,000 sq ft would be eligible for submitting an application, said Mr SP Gon Chowdhury, MD, WBGEDC. He said that corporate houses with 50,000 sq ft or more roof top area can set up “high efficient"" solar power plant capable of generating 250 KW of power. He said Wipro has already expressed interest for setting up the proposed solar power plant. This corporate houses would be able to sell power to different state power utilities at Rs 11 per unit as per the state electricity regulatory commission.

He said the WBGEDC has already spoken to different power utilities like CESC, West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Corporation (WBSEDC), and DPL. All these power utilities have agreed to buy solar power from the corporate houses. They would be providing the solar power generated to the grid with the help of a transformer. A metre would be fitted to record the total amount of transmission and accordingly the corporate houses would receive the ‘preferential’ tariff.

He described this as “win-win"" situation for the corporate houses as they would be entitled to tax benefits and can also ask the United Nation Framework on Climate Change for carbon credit. But prior to the application, the corporate houses would have to take post country clearance from ministry of environment and forest.

Mr Gon Chowdhury said that the power utilities would be benefited as it is mandatory for them to buy 10 per cent renewable energy by 2012 as per Renewable Energy Port Folio (RPF) standard.

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